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"I'm always proud to be the coach at Kentucky," he said, "but I'm awfully proud of our team tonight for winning this game."

It looked in doubt early as Cincinnati grabbed a 12-point lead on a Kahla Roudebush shot in the lane. The junior guard who led the Bearcats in scoring last season with 16.5 points a game, had her average before the break.

By the end of the game, Roudebush had a game-high 29 points, but Dunlap held her in check much of the second half.

The Bearcats went into the locker room on a five-point run to extend their lead to 33-25 after UK had cut it to three.

"We were a little bit discombobulated at one point," senior Eleia Roddy said, "but we came back and fixed it."

The fix came via eight unanswered points early in the second half, including six from Dunlap, to tie it at 38-38. She hit her first collegiate three-pointer in that span and another during a later run. She scored 17 of her 22 points in the second half.

The coaches "tried to tell me that I needed to do certain things for the team this season," she said. "I wouldn't say they threatened me, but they kind of put it on me to get some shots up."

A Dunlap putback with 10:36 left gave Kentucky its first lead of the game, 45-44. Another Dunlap rebound and made basket gave UK the lead for good, 51-50 with 6:33 remaining.

Those putbacks were the difference in the game, Cincinnati Coach J. Kelley Hall said.

"There were four big possessions where they got putbacks down the stretch there and that hurts," he said. "It's hard to overcome that: second-chance points, points in the paint, things like that."